Verizon Completes Straight Path Purchase, Pays Record FCC Penalty

Verizon recently wrapped up its $3.1 billion acquisition of spectrum holding company Straight Path after paying a record penalty to the Federal Communications Commission.

The FCC said the carrier and its new subsidiary paid more than $614 million under a January 2017 settlement to resolve allegations that Straight Path violated FCC rules by failing to use the millimeter wave spectrum it was awarded.

Straight Path owns hundreds of licenses in the 28 GHz and 39 GHz bands considered important to forthcoming 5G networks. AT&T reached an agreement to buy Straight Path for $1.6 billion last spring before a Verizon came in with an offer nearly twice as high.

The 2017 settlement originally required Straight Path to sell the licenses, and pay 20 percent of the proceeds to the U.S. Treasury, before the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau approved the transfer of the licenses to Verizon earlier this year.

Straight Path previously relinquished 196 licenses not included in the Verizon deal and paid $15 million to the Treasury.